Vanessa Williams: On Surviving Her Nude-Photo Scandal

Williams overcame scandal with the help of her mom

by MORE Editors

Photograph: Mike Ruiz

"I wouldn’t have been able to power through this if it hadn’t been for my parents. I never received any judgment from either of them. I never got, ‘How could you?’ ‘What were you thinking?’ (Although I’m sure that’s what they were thinking.) It was more like, ‘Holy smokes—this is a doozy. How are we going to get through this? Well, no ­matter—we’ll get through this!’"